


Chocolate

by youreyestheyglow



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bakery AU, Burns, But Not Much, Fireman AU - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, Oneshot, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:57:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreyestheyglow/pseuds/youreyestheyglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco owns a bakery; Jean likes to stop by whenever he gets a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chocolate

He was always dirty when he came in, and often sweating.

He would walk directly into the bathroom. The first few times, he’d lean over the counter – “I’m buying something I swear just gotta wash my hands” – and wait for you to acknowledge him before he’d head into the single-stall bathroom. Within a week, he’d started waving at you to catch your attention and pointing towards the bathroom to show his intent, and after two weeks, he just waved for the sake of waving, tossing a toothy grin your way.

He never carried his hat and jacket up to the counter, out of respect for the food. You presume he left it at the fire station, which was a two minute walk down the road; he never came in through the parking lot entrance, and always headed towards the fire station when he left. You felt bad for him, on those hot summer days; his thick fireproof pants couldn’t be comfortable in the heat. Then again, he was a firefighter. Heat was kind of his thing.

He always waited politely in line. He was never one of those who abused their power and cut the line, even on those days when the line stretched out the door. You were never sure if he was on break or if he was on his way to the station or on his way home, but he never came at the same time of day, and some days you watched for him until the end of the day without catching even a glimpse of his two-toned undercut or the ladder of piercings up the shell of his ear. You’re not ashamed to admit you were disappointed on those days; he was always polite, always smiling, and always gorgeous. You’re a little ashamed to admit that you took your time with his order, drawing out the time when he would stand languidly in front of your counter, newly-cleaned hands resting on his hips or in his pockets or on the granite countertops.

He never ordered the same thing, but you quickly noticed a pattern: he really, really liked chocolate. _Really_ liked it. He ordered the double chocolate cake and the triple chocolate mousse and the chocolate croissants and the chocolate cookies.

It took him a month to run out of chocolate things.

That night, after the bakery closed and Christa and Bertholt went home, you discussed the idea of new chocolate pastries with Ymir, your cousin and partner-in-crime-and-baking.

“Why do we need more?” She snorted. “Our case is full, and it’s not like we don’t have plenty to cook anyway.”

“I was just thinking it would be nice to have some variety,” you said diplomatically. “Instead of the same thing every day.”

She straightened up. “Is this about that fireman? Dude with the weird hair? Piercings to rival mine?”

“You don’t have any piercings.”

“Not where you can see them,” she says with a lewd eyebrow waggle. “Ask Christa.”

You wince. “I’ll pass.”

“So. It’s about him, isn’t it. Do you even know his name? Hmm? Are you going to start up a new line of chocolate products for a dude whose name you don’t even know?”

“I –” you shrink a little. “Yes?”

“You’re such a fucking turdball.”

You throw your hands in the air. “Jesus, you could’ve just said no, I know what ‘no’ means.”

“I’m not saying no. I’m saying you’re a fucking turdball. I’m also saying I’m not helping, and if your experiments get in the way, they’re going down the toilet.” She straightens and affixes you with a serious expression that would make you think she was your boss if you weren’t fully aware that you owned this bakery long before she got into the business with you. “Our regulars know what they like, and tend to stick to it. We’re not getting rid of crowd favorites that pull in tons of money just because you want to make everything chocolate.”

“All right, all right, all right. What if I just made one? He could be the taste tester, and if it’s something big like a cake, we can give the rest out as free samples.”

She waves you away. “Go ahead, go ahead.”

You try not to look like anything less than a fully responsible, business-owning adult, but you think you come across as a puppy instead.

Chocolate pudding-filled rolls probably aren’t original, but you don’t sell them, so you figure they’ll be good enough for now.

They’re the first thing you cook in the morning, ignoring Ymir’s lecture about getting the usual pastries done first. You check on them so often Ymir actually kicks you out of the kitchen.

The rolls are soft and warm, the pudding squeezing out when you bite into one, and _wow_ you should’ve made these a long time ago. Ymir grumbles when you make her eat one, but she avoids you for the rest of the morning, so you know she liked them.

Jean is one of the first customers in that morning, so instead of being stalkerish and telling him you have one set aside for him, you just hand him one of the ones you left out as a free sample.

“Oh, _hell_ yes,” he mutters. “Is this new?”

“Yeah, we’re trying to expand our pastry line,” you say casually.

Ymir appears out of nowhere – you swear she was in the kitchen? -  “He made them for you, don’t let him tell you any different.”

Your stomach drops through the floor and keeps going, deciding to make friends with some nice earthworms while simultaneously training for the summer Olympics, doing flips worthy of a gold medal. Your face is hotter than any of the fires the fireman has ever put out. You know this for a fact. Maybe if you actually catch fire he’ll put you out. You suppose it’s a good thing you’ve got a crush on a fireman and not a florist or something non-fire related.

The second between when Ymir swings back into the kitchen, leaving the fireman with his eyebrows up by his hairline, and when his face relaxes into a grin lasts a lifetime. You think Ymir’s just taken a decade off your life, honestly.

“Well then, I guess I should probably tell you how it tastes, huh? Wait. Did you taste them already?”

You hesitate. Truth or a lie? “Yeah, but I always think my baking is good. I need an unbiased taste tester.”

“And what, the other people here aren’t unbiased taste testers?”

“Nope,” you answer, before your brain has a chance to catch up with your mouth and ask what the everloving fuck it’s doing. “They – ah – for the most part they – they all order the same thing every time,” you stammer. “You don’t.” _What does that have to do with anything?_ You scream at yourself. “So they don’t have anything to compare it to, really.”

It’s a weak argument, you know it is, but he accepts it.

“Right. Let’s see how this fucker – oops, sorry bout that F-bomb there – how this thing tastes.”

You smile a little at his apology – like you’re a kid who’s never heard the word before – but then he opens his mouth and shoves half the goddamn roll in his mouth (was that strictly _necessary_?) and his eyes roll back in his fucking head (it was _not_ that good), and the other half follows it in record time, and then he’s licking pudding off his fingers (like there aren’t a billion napkins right in front of his stupid face), and enthusiastically nodding his appreciation. “That’s incredible, you’re a genius –” he frowns. “What’s your name?”

You stumble over your tongue as you answer. “M-Marco.”

He grins at you and (is he leaning over the counter towards you or is that your imagination) replies: “Good to meet you, Marco. My name’s Jean. You’re a genius, Marco, that shit’s delicious. How much was that?”

“How much what?” You’re grinning like a dork and you know it, but fuck, you know his name and it’s fucking _French_ and gorgeous and it fits him so _well_ even though this is the most you’ve ever spoken to and –

“Money, how much money? Does it cost?” He clarifies, and wow, you’re an idiot, that should’ve been obvious.

You shake your head frantically. “No, no, it’s a free sample, it’s free.”

He shakes his head right back at you. “No, no, I can’t have more food before my shift starts or I’ll get a stomachache – that’s probably too much information, sorry – so I’m not buying anything else. I can’t just get a free sample, that’s practically stealing –”

“No, you’re not paying for a free sample, it’s not stealing if it was free –”

“Yeah it was, if you don’t tell me how much it is, I’m gonna overpay, I don’t care –”

“I’ve told you how much it is, it’s free –”

“Marco!” Christa says sharply from the other cash register. “I need help ringing! Gotta move your line along!” She shoots a pointed glare at Jean, and you realize the line behind him is steadily growing, moving over to Christa’s line when they realize she’s actually ringing people and not just chatting with them.

“Gotta go, Jean! You heard the woman! No time to argue, just gotta go!”

“Fine, fine!” He says with a laugh. “I’m going!” He turns around, walks to Christa’s cash register, and drops a ten on the counter.

Is it your imagination, or does he wink at you when he walks out?

When there’s a break in the flow of customers a few hours later, you tuck the ten into your pocket.

You wrap it in pastry dough and bake it into a chocolate muffin.

“There’s a surprise in the middle,” you tell Jean the next day, after he’s taken a bite and declared it perfect. “I wish you could stay, but the line’s long – sorry about that – no you can’t pay, you paid ten dollars yesterday that covers the roll and the muffin – no, get out of here with your wallet – _no,_ Jean –” He flips you off good-naturedly as he walks out, and then makes a face as he realizes he’s cursed in public.

You really would love to see his face when he bites into the flakey crust and finds his money in there.

It suddenly occurs to you that he might eat the paper bill.

The next day he walks in and throws the bill on the counter. “What. The. Fuck.”

“It was a free sample,” you explain with a polite smile that you usually save for your shitty customers. “ _Free_.”

“No. Fuck that. I’m not putting up with that. I’m not taking any more free samples. I’ll have a slice of the chocolate cake. The one that’s not free.”

You slide the platter of choco-hazelnut cookies towards him. “But I made these for you! Are you really not going to tell me what they taste like?”

“No. No I’m not.” He slides the bill over the counter. “Not until you take this.”

You slide the bill towards yourself and slide the plate of cookies towards him.

He glares at you, but takes a cookie.

Jesus, if that’s what he looks like when he tastes a cookie, you’d love to see what he looks like when he orgasms.

Wait. That was a weird thought.

“I’ll make a bag for you,” you offer, accepting the five dollars he slides towards you before turning around and putting both bills and the cookies into a paper bag. “Enjoy!”

His grin is flirtatious. That, or you’re out of your mind. You’re not quite sure which.

The next day, he’s waiting outside when you open the doors. “Marco. Not fucking cool, man. Not fucking cool.” He waves the money in your face.

“Morning, Jean,” you reply cheerfully. “You’ll never guess what I made for you today – actually, it’s not all that inventive, you probably will…”

“No, no, no, no. No. _No_. I’m not eating anything until I see you put this money in your cash register. This is a reverse fucking robbery. I’m putting money _in_ the drawer. Take it or I’ll start leaving it in obscure places around the bakery for you to find.”

“I always did like hide and seek,” you say nostalgically, remembering long games of hide and seek in which you all hid behind chairs and the hardest part was figuring out who was behind which chair.

You wonder for a moment if he’s going to follow you behind the counter, but he just leans forward, resting his elbows against the countertop.

For one fast second you wish you were still standing behind him.

That’s inappropriate, and you chastise yourself appropriately for it.

And then all inappropriate thoughts are brought to the forefront of your mind as he runs one hand through his (gorgeous) hair before looking at you from underneath his (long, thick) eyelashes. “Dude, seriously. I can’t keep taking free shit from you. You’re a local bakery. I’m not one of those shitheads who’ll just take crap from you ‘cause I can.” He holds the money out to you. “Please?”

 _Wow_.

You think you might be in love.

“I,” you begin, but you really aren’t sure what to say.

Christa nearly falls out of the kitchen, realizes Jean’s the only customer, and plucks the money from his hand. “Jeez, Marco, if someone offers you money, _take it_.”

You frown at her. “There’s flour in your hair.”

She frantically runs her fingers through her hair. “Shit! Shit, I told her to wash her hands –”

“I told you no making out before work,” you point out, “and neither of you paid attention to that, either.”

“Inter-employee relationships?” Jean asks.

“Just one.”

Christa rolls her eyes. “I’ve tried to set Marco up with Bertl, but –”

“Christa, I’m going to shoot you,” you mutter.

“- But he and Bertl looked so grossed out I was worried they’d puke on the food, so I dropped it.”

“So kind of you, Christa,” you say drily.

Jean looks at you with one eyebrow perked up. “Not into guys?”

“Not into Bertl. He’s like – Ymir’s third cousin or something. That makes him my fourth cousin, I think, and that makes him family, and also – no offense to Bertl – I wouldn’t be able to date him anyway. Not my type.”

“What’s your type?” Is he leaning closer?

 _Hint: his name is Jean._ You shrug. “I’m a fan of piercings.”

You can almost hear Christa rolling her eyes. You ignore her in favor of meeting Jean’s eyes, but you’re only able to hold his gaze for about a second before your face heats up to a temperature that could cook a soufflé. “Anyway,” you segue cheerfully, “Peanut butter and chocolate bars. Funnily enough, in spite of the fact that they take two minutes to make –”

“ _Thirty,_ ” Christa whispers.

“- I’ve never made them before. So you’re my taste tester.” You will Christa to stay silent about the twenty minutes you spent hounding her and Ymir this morning, getting their fully fleshed-out opinion on the damn things.

She does.

You make a mental note to give her a raise.

Jean’s face does something interesting after he takes a bite, and then he shoves the whole thing in his mouth. “Fafsprygd,” he says earnestly.

You giggle. “What?”

He blushes and swallows. “That’s really good,” he clarifies. “Like, holy shit, good.”

You push the platter towards him. “Have some more, then.”

“Are you trying to fatten me up or something?” He mutters as he takes another. “Is that your plan? To eat me?”

The urge to make an inappropriate joke is so strong that for a moment you can’t say anything for fear of talking about his dick (yum).

Bertl, surprisingly enough, rescues you, peering from around the door. “Uh – Marco – minor problem back here –”

“Bertholt?” Jean interrupts.

Bertl turns bright red and mutters something that might be a hello.

“You two know each other?” You ask. How the hell –

“Bertl’s dating Reiner,” Jean explains. “Reiner has the same shift as I do.”

Oh. You never realized Bertl’s boyfriend was a fireman. You turn back to Bertl. “Ymir’s fault?”

“Mmhmm.”

You smile at Jean. “See you tomorrow?”

He grins back. “Tomorrow.”

When you see the mess Ymir made with the flour, you wish you’d stayed out front with Jean.

Jean’s schedule changes. He starts coming in the morning, sometimes getting there before you open the doors, sometimes arriving just minutes later. One morning you joke that if he could get up early enough to meet you when you arrive to start baking, he would, and within the week he starts showing up when you do.

You don’t have to bake alone anymore.

He stops bothering trying to pay, paying you in assistance instead, which you’re perfectly fine with. You teach him the basics, and he helps you with the cookies and the cakes and the simpler foods. He has a sense of humor that you’d label as dry if it weren’t for his tendency to laugh too much at puns. He’s intelligent, picking up the basics of baking quickly enough, and creative – you only have to look up new chocolate recipes on the days when his shifts are too early and too long for him to visit. He attends the community college, you discover, and when the second summer session starts and he has homework, he brings it with him in the morning. You find that the silence that falls between the two of you when he’s drawing or working on an assignment and you’re cooking is calm, amiable. You find that he looks good in glasses.

You find that he likes to draw you.

It takes time for him to open up, but when he finally shows you his sketchbook – blushing redder than the fire engine he drives – it’s full of sketches of you, sometimes properly lined, sometimes used as anatomy practice, sometimes just rough unfinished doodles.

That’s the day you find your courage, moving in slowly so you know he knows what you’re doing.

He doesn’t pull away when you kiss him, and he initiates the second kiss.

He tastes strongly of chocolate and faintly of toothpaste and you wonder if it’s a combination you’ll come to love.

You find that it is.

Jean becomes the reason why you smile in the morning instead of wandering around dead-eyed until seven.

When Ymir asks if you have a boyfriend, you blush and say _it’s complicated_.

You’ve never talked about it, honestly, and it’s not something you want to push. You’re happy the way things are: the two of you meet and talk in your bakery, in the safety of your commercial-sized kitchen, and things are about the same as always, just with more kissing. You suppose that makes you boyfriends, but you don’t know where he lives and he doesn’t know where you live and that makes you acquaintances.

So it’s complicated.

It gets worse when September rolls around.

Jean has more classes than he did in the summer, and it’s the dry season. Between classes, homework, and combating the fires that spring up seemingly unprovoked, you hardly see him anymore. You bake alone for the first time in weeks.

You bake alone for days.

When Jean does manage to come in one morning, he falls asleep on the table.

You’re glad. He needs to get sleep.

Ymir gets sick in mid-September.

You decide against asking Christa or Bertl to stay extra hours, and you realize just how much Ymir helps you when you don’t leave the bakery until one in the morning. Four days in a row find you leaving in the dim hours of the morning and stumbling back in four hours later, running on too little sleep and not enough coffee, and by the third day, you can’t even work up the energy to feel disappointed that Jean isn’t there.

You suppose your exhaustion is to blame for when you leave the potholder too close to an open flame, and you blame your exhaustion for your failure to notice it until it’s started spreading. To be fair, you were on the other side of the kitchen, nowhere near the stove. You suppose that doesn’t excuse it, though.

Your brain moves too sluggishly for you to do much more than try to grab the fire extinguisher.

It speeds up when you realize the door is blocked.

The door, the window, the sink, all blocked. It takes your exhausted brain too long to figure out the fire extinguisher.

The smoke proves too much for you, and something cracks when your knees hit the floor. Heat hotter than the summer sun licks at you, and you don’t know if the noise is the smoke alarm or if you’re screaming.

You notice it when someone picks you up, roughly cradling you to their chest, and the clean air hitting your face wakes you up enough that when the fireman pulls his hat off, you recognize Jean.

You’re only able to hold his gaze for about a second before the ambulance doors slam shut.

You lose consciousness quickly.

Your hospital room is full of people, full of family, all of them avoiding your right side and none of them Jean.

After you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, you understand why. The right side of your body is mottled, red and raw and burned and horrific, and you refuse to look in the mirror for days until you’re allowed to go home.

Ymir insists that you stay home, promising to take care of the insurance and of rebuilding your bakery. She visits you often.

Sometimes, she goes to say something, but a strange look crosses her face and she doesn’t say it.

Sometimes, you go to ask about Jean, but something about her refusal to bring him up shuts your mouth before a word can slip out.

After a week, you decide you don’t want to see him.

More accurately, you don’t want _him_ to see _you_.

You’re not the person he used to kiss while sitting on your table, schoolbooks spread out and forgotten behind him, arms around your waist or hands on your cheeks, ignoring the flour that you both knew would end up in your hair. Half your body is burnt off now, and the fact that they only had to remove your eye and not your arm is a miracle. The fact that you survived in the first place used more luck than any one person should get in an entire lifetime. Retaining the use of your hand is just piling more good luck on top of good luck. You suppose you shouldn’t expect Jean on top of all of that.

All the same, you miss his smile.

You don’t realize how much you missed him until he turns up on your doorstep, unannounced and anxious.

“Are you –”

“Where have you –”

You both stop, letting the other speak, and chuckle awkwardly after a moment of silence.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

He’s shorter than you are. You suppose you should’ve noticed that before, but you’re more aware of yourself now. “I’m getting along. Where have you been?”

A look of confusion crosses his face. “What?”

It’s not the first time you’ve been angry since the fire. You’ve been angry at Ymir for getting sick, angry at Christa and Bertl for not offering to take on extra work, angry at yourself for not asking and for doing too much work and for not getting enough sleep and for not paying attention and just for being angry.

You haven’t been angry at Jean until now.

“Where have you _been_? Were you really so busy you couldn’t visit me in the hospital? I was there for two _weeks_ , you’re telling me you didn’t get any time off even _once_?”

“I couldn’t get in,” he says quietly, his face an interesting shade of grey.

“What?”

“They wouldn’t let me in. It was family only. And then when you got out – I didn’t know how to find you. The bakery’s burned out, I couldn’t find Ymir or Christa or Bertholt to ask where you lived. It’s kind of an accident that I found out – Reiner’s car broke down, and Bertholt had to drive him in, and I – ambushed him, actually.” He doesn’t sound very repentant. “Eight hours later, my shift ended, and – here I am.” He tries and fails to hold your gaze. “I – I’m sorry, Marco. I’m so sorry. I should’ve gotten there sooner, I should’ve gotten in faster, I –” A shaky hand reaches towards you and brushes the skin on your right cheek. You close your eye. “I should’ve known where you lived so I could’ve come visit you sooner.”

“You’re the first person to touch my burned skin, you know,” you murmur peacefully. “Even Ymir doesn’t touch it.”

His hand disappears and you blink your eye open.

“Does it hurt? Should I not touch it? I don’t want to hurt you –”

You laugh. “No, no, don’t worry – it’s – it’s nice to have someone who’s willing to acknowledge it.”

He tentatively brushes his hand over your face again. “Oh. All right then.”

You take his hand in your burnt one just as tentatively as he touched you, and you he smiles at you.

His lips on the burnt side of your forehead are welcome, and his lips on yours are even more so.

He visits you sporadically after that, usually still in his work clothes, and brings his homework. He still draws you, burns and eye patch and all, and sometimes without your eye patch, managing to make the eye socket look artistic.

You hang his drawings around your little house, and confront yourself through the eyes of your boyfriend every day.

You learn that you’re beautiful.

You learn that having an artist for a boyfriend is the fastest way to gain self-esteem.

You hadn’t seen him for three days when you turn the key in the new lock on your rebuilt bakery.

It’s cleaner than it’s ever been, and it smells of wood and metal.

You take care not to put your oven mitt near the stove.

It’s only six in the morning when you hear a knock on the front door. Ymir isn’t due to show up for half an hour and the bakery isn’t set to open for an hour, but you’re not particularly surprised by the knock.

When you open the door, he’s there, grin in place. “Got anything chocolate for me?”


End file.
